Trip Report: A Turks & Caicos Villa Vacation

by Wendy Crum

Boston was a grim 33 degrees as we pulled into Logan airport in early March. We were fed up with winter and its snow, and were long overdue for our annual Caribbean break. A quick trip around Wimco’s website convinced us that the Turks & Caicos would be the ideal choice – with direct flights from Boston to the main island of Providentiales (Provo), miles of sandy beaches, good snorkeling right off shore for the kids, and a great selection of private villas to rent. We’d read that temperatures were in the low 70’s in Miami – not quite warm enough for our taste – while just an hour southeast in the Turks they were in the low 80’s – perfect.

High airfares had driven us to time our vacation for an off week between the kid’s winter and spring breaks…a fact that delighted them. The airlines cleverly raise their prices for school vacation weeks when there is peak demand, and then lower them during off weeks to boost demand. We lucked into fares that were 50% less than peak, and rented a villa that was otherwise booked for most of the winter season. All good things. In exchange for this extra bonus week of vacation the kids agreed to write a mini trip report each day which they’d hand in to their teachers.

We arrived in Provo at 1pm on a Saturday, and were greeted by Wimco’s local rep Sandeep. He met us at the baggage claim area, helped us collect our things then walked us out our rental car which was waiting for us in the parking lot. Sandeep explained to us that he was recommending a slight change in plans. The villa we had rented, the 2 bedroom Villa TNC LIM in the Turtle Cove area of Grace Bay Beach had a last minute plumbing problem that would take 2 days to fix. Hey, it’s the Caribbean, things break, and everything takes longer to fix, right? We could live with that inconvenience for a few days, or accept his gracious offer to move us to another villa.

Ever the adventurers, we agreed to move villas, and agreed to follow Sandeep to check out some options. Imagine our surprise as he ushered us down a long private driveway to the sprawling villa Voce del Mare in the Silly Creek Cay area of the south coast. We entered through a vine covered arbor way, into a long corridor that bisected the house, to our left and right were outdoor fountains that could be seen from the corridor, ahead of us was the central living room overlooking the pool, with the turquoise colored ocean in the distance. A passageway on the left led into a long and roomy kitchen and dining area, also overlooking the ocean. A stone walkway led from the pool area to the coral shorefront where we could see Parrot fish swimming among the coral outcroppings immediately below us. We were sold – and put our bags down on the spot! That’s one of the advantages of booking through Wimco, in addition to handling airline and car rentals for their clients, if anything goes wrong with your original choice, they can move you to another villa in their inventory – and in our case it was a stunning upgrade!